Despite being a native of Indiana and attending college in Wisconsin, Tom Allen always envisioned living in the South.
So when graduation from Marantha Baptist College neared, Allen and his wife, Tracy, began looking for jobs where the weather was warm.
“I sent out about 65 resumes and cover letters to high schools mostly in Florida, Georgia and a couple in the Carolinas. Those were areas we wanted to live in, coach and teach in and was looking for football and wrestling coaching jobs,” Allen said.
Only two schools responded with openings for both Allen and his wife – a school in Miami and Temple Heights in Tampa.
“They flew us down to Temple Heights. There was one school in Miami and them in Tampa that had an opportunity for both of us, and that is how we got started. Mike Doig, our director of football operations here, and his wife, Wendy, taught and coached with us at that school,” Allen said.
At Temple Heights, Allen was the head wrestling coach and spent a season as a defensive assistant coach before taking over the reigns as head football coach at the now-defunct Christian school in Tampa.
Allen wasted little time putting his own stamp on the program, which had gone 14-35 prior to his taking over as head coach. After being promoted to interim coach, Allen won his head coaching debut against Admiral Farragut and followed that up with another victory.
In one full season, Temple Heights went from being the worst team to hosting a playoff game for the first time in almost two decades, and they did it with a coach who preached one thing – belief.
That belief spilled over to a T-shirt idea he had in 1994 when he put Dare to Believe 1994 State Playoffs on shirts and handed them out. Allen said his athletic director was unsure of the decision.
“The ‘94 season was my first full year as head coach and had shirts made up that said Dare to Believe 1994 State Playoffs had been 17 years since we made the playoffs. I believed, I believed in the kids. I ran the offense my dad taught me and the defense we ran when I was in high school. We had a few coaches, small program, but it was that belief and that passion. The guy who was the athletic director didn’t think it was a good idea to put it out there on shirts. He said it was one thing to say it behind closed doors, but to put it on a shirt, but I believed. Amazing to think that is where it began and we took that motto Dare to Believe. We did make the state playoffs that year,” Allen said.
During the 1994 season, the Temple Heights Eagles soared to a 7-0 start and advanced to the Class 2A playoffs after knocking off Santa Fe Catholic. In the postseason, the Eagles lost to Lake Highland Prep in the first round, ending what had been a remarkable season that ended with the Tampa Bay Times naming Allen the Hillsborough County Coach-of-the-Year.
“I have a ball in my office that’s in a glass case from 1994. That team will always be a special one for me, and I haven’t seen a lot of those guys in a long time. You always think about where you’ve been and where it all started,” Allen said.
Allen would leave Temple Heights to become a defensive coordinator and teacher at Armwood High School in Tampa before heading back to Indiana to serve as the defensive coordinator at Marion High School before leaving for Ben Davis High School, where he served as defensive coordinator under Dick Dullaghan. When Dullaghan retired after the 2003 season, Allen became the head coach at Ben Davis, where he stayed until 2006 when he got his first college coaching job at Wabash College. After several stops, Allen would return to Florida in 2015, serving one season as the defensive coordinator at the University of South Florida, before coming back to Indiana in 2016.
“I feel blessed and the good Lord has allowed me to be at some neat places to make some change and follow the dream in my heart to be a college coach. I started at Division III Wabash and then NAIA and Division I-AA and it has been an amazing journey,” Allen said.
The journey will bring him back to Tampa this week as the Hoosiers take on Ole Miss in the Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium, which is located not far from where it all began for Allen.
"Florida is a special place to us. I've lived down there. A lot of great memories. I'm excited to be able to take a team back down to that state for another bowl game. Think about this. 1992 I started coaching high school football and it was in Tampa, Florida. We came up with a phrase of Dare to Believe and challenged team to do something that hadn't happened in 17 years, and some of those young men still live in Tampa. Pretty cool year all this is going on and we have historic season, from Temple Heights to the Big Ten. It started in Tampa and has a way to end in Tampa, and kind of poetic justice. Special place for me. That is the home to so many of our guys and their families can come see them play, that to me is pretty awesome thing," Allen said.
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